Manufacturers and distributors of printers and other devices, which use consumable supplies, are presented with the problem of having unauthorized third parties, refill empty cartridges with unapproved, often-inferior supplies. Replacement and reuse of these unauthorized cartridges often causes problems with the proper operation of the machines. Unauthorized retainer cartridge refill and use typically occurs in systems such as, printers, facsimiles, photocopiers, photographic film processors, and machines supplying or using a consumable. Typically, these products are refilled with inferior goods, which during use may cause machine malfunctions such as, uneven application of toner on a drum, clogged print nozzles and/or the printing of unintended lines or blotches. If left untreated, this problem may even persist until the machine ceases operation.
A result of these malfunctions, the machine vendor is typically called upon to service the machine. During the response to the service call, the service technician may determine that the malfunction was a result of inferior supplies. Based upon this finding the user is then charged with the cost associated with the services call. However, the immediate link between the malfunction and the inferior supplies may by difficult for the service technician to prove. For this reason, and in an effort to ensure customer satisfaction, the first service call is usually covered by the vendor. In either case, each party is inconvenienced and/or economically impacted.
Preventing the unauthorized refill of retaining cartridges ensures that the machines requiring such containers will operate using approved supplies, within an approved retaining cartridge. The vendor's ability to control the quality of the consumable, as well as, the number of times the cartridge is used, enables vendor control over the effect the cartridge may have on the performance of the machine. In addition, the cost of operating and servicing the machine may be reduced.
Tracking the history of the retaining cartridges allows the vendor to know how many times the cartridge was used, to what extent is was used, and if there were any problems related to the use of that cartridge. Tracking the history, requires maintaining a record of information such as, the number of times the cartridge was refilled; the number of cycles the cartridge has been through; the average temperature of the machine; the average consumable dispensed per cycle, the weight of the cartridge; and, the total period of time the machine has been operation.
One solution to the problem is to always require the use of new cartridges. An example of one such system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,940,103 issued to Hetzer et al. on Aug. 17, 1999 for a Device for Preventing Re-use of a Container for Supplying Ink. This apparatus provides a device wherein a hollow needle is inserted into a rubber elastic closure of an ink supply. A hermetically closing cover device is provided inside the container, defining an insertion region for the hollow needle, and can be tripped irreversibly by the initial insertion of the hollow needle. Once the hollow needle has been removed, ink can no longer flow, even if the needle is reinserted.
Preventing the reuse of a liquid container requires that new containers must always be used and that the old containers be discarded, regardless of whether the container is mechanically capable of performing as, or like, new. This practice significantly raises the operation cost of the machine and is environmentally unconscious. In today's business atmosphere, where the consumer is continually requiring environmentally safe reductions in operating expense, this solution is no longer viable.